South Western Railway

“ The worst difficulties of railway construction in New South Wales have already been surmounted. Future extensions of the system must be mainly over the great western plains, where railway construction presents few difficulties, if we except the bridging of the Darling and its tributaries, which are liable to floods. Lightly built extensions of existing lines are projected at a cost of 2000l. a mile; but even were these lines substantially built for heavy traffic the capital cost per mile of the New South Wales railways should become very materially reduced. ”

“ Norris Bell, the eminent engineer who controlled the construction of the line, and is now running it in such a way that, despite almost total absence of local traffic, it is nearly paying its working expenses, a remarkable achievement considering the desolate nature of the country through which it passes. The railway connects the populous States of Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia, with the vast and potentially rich, but presently undeveloped, western territories. ”

“ But then the South-Western has, for some reason or another, always been allowed to cut up and practically destroy the open spaces along its route, so that there is scarce a common in the south-western suburbs but that line has a cutting through or an embankment across it, with level crossings innumerable, at which those who use the roads must needs wait the pleasure of the railway, until the crowded traffic of passenger and goods trains has passed by! ”

“ He endeavoured to make railways commercially successful, and at the same time to combine elegance with strength and economy of design. His bridges on the Lancaster and Carlisle and the Caledonian railways, and those across the Thames at Richmond, Kew, and Kingston, show his success. Latterly he was appointed engineer to the London and South-Western Railway Company, and his plan for the line from Yeovil to Exeter was accepted in 1856. ”

“ The lines of the Cambrian railway serve North and Mid-Wales, and branches of the London & North-Western and the Midland penetrate into South Wales as far as Swansea. A network of lines connects the great industrial districts of Glamorganshire with the main line of the Great Western railway. There are steamship services between Holyhead and Dublin in connexion with the trains of the London & North-Western railway, and an important traffic for dairy produce, live-stock and passengers between Fishguard and Rosslare on the Irish coast was opened in 1906 in connexion with the Great Western railway. ”

“ The Western people apparently think no more of throwing down a railroad, if they want to go anywhere, than a conservative Easterner does of taking an unaccustomed walk across country; and the railway constructors and managers are a little amused at the Eastern slowness and want of facility in construction and management. One hears that the East is antiquated, and does not know anything about railroad building. Shovels, carts, and wheelbarrows are of a past age; the big wheel-scraper does the business. ”

“ Important as the above causes have been in contributing to the improved position of the New South Wales railways, nothing has probably contributed more to this result than the increased efficiency of the staff, and of the labour employed. Mr. Eddy has striven hard to create amongst the New South Wales railway employés the same esprit de corps which exists amongst the employés of his old service, the London and North-Western Railway Company in England, and there is good evidence that his efforts have been attended with success. ”

“ Besides these makers, the railway companies are themselves large constructors of locomotives. [192] The Crewe Works turns out 120 new engines yearly. The Great Western Company make large numbers of engines, both at Swindon and at Wolverhampton; the Midland Company produce many engines at Derby; the Brighton Company make locomotives at Brighton, as do also the South-Eastern at Ashford, the South-Western at Nine Elms, London, and the London, Chatham, and Dover at the Longhedge Works, Battersea. ”

“ So far from exercising any monopoly, the railways here are subjected, even among themselves, to a fierce competition. Parliament has sanctioned a second railway to Dover; there are already two lines to Hastings; two are completed to Portsmouth, and a third is making; the Government has insisted upon the South-Western making a second line to Exeter; there are already three lines to Birmingham; there are three lines to Derby, three to Peterborough, three to York, two to Cambridge, two to Oxford, two to Norwich, two to Lincoln, two to Liverpool ”

“ So great is this material development and so great the consequent demand for transportation facilities, that every railway in the South may well need double tracking, while to keep pace with the South’s present rate of progress, thousands of miles of new railways will have to be constructed every year for many years to come. The South should therefore continue to encourage capital no less than immigration, on a scale extensive enough to meet all its legitimate requirements. ”

“ I therefore feel that the southern railroad situation is gradually becoming better understood, not only by the public at large, but by the railway men of the South, who are jointly appreciative of the fact that the greatest need of southern railroads is the confidence and support of the communities through which they run and serve. ”

“ As the country traversed develops and more traffic accrues to the road, rendering improvement advisable, the track is overhauled and relaid with heavier metals, the lighter rails being shipped to another point to enable the pioneering process to be continued.
This is an elastic system eminently adapted to such a country as South Australia, which is still in its infancy, and where the demand for railway communication is confined almost entirely to agricultural requirements and to the transportation of farming produce, especially in the more remote up-country districts. ”

“ The train service was now very much disorganised. Quite a number of people who had been expecting friends from places on the South-Western network were standing about the station. One grey-headed old gentleman came and abused the South-Western Company bitterly to my brother. “It wants showing up,” he said.
One or two trains came in from Richmond, Putney, and Kingston, containing people who had gone out for a day’s boating and found the locks closed and a feeling of panic in the air. ”

“ That the City and South London Railway is most useful and popular is shown by the number of passengers it has carried—some ninety millions since its opening—the returns for last year showing about eighteen millions, over a total route of about seven miles. For the convenience of travellers, it eventually will have subways, connecting its Lombard Street Station with the Bank Station of the Central London Railway, and it already has them from its new London Bridge Station to the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway. ”

“ Nothing was left but to return, and so, through lofty cavernous regions beneath the terminus, over bridges, and down endless slopes of wood-paving, she managed to reach the up-platform.
Now came the rush of early City-bound men, season-ticket holders, who had travelled by the London and South Western line from all parts of Surrey served by it. They came pelting down the inclines as if their lives depended upon catching a particular train. ”

“ The Bombay, Baroda, and Central Indian Railways, with 2764 miles, earned £3,253,866. The Great Indian Peninsular and Indian Midland Railways, with 2800 miles, earned £3,063,066. Comparing with important home railways:—
These figures show that South African railways make high earnings as compared even with a great railway like the Canadian Pacific, a railway serving one of the most important trade routes in the world, and traversing a rich agricultural country, with a population of 5,000,000, as compared with South Africa’s 700,000 whites and 2,000,000 blacks. ”

“ The atmospheric system of working railways found favour for a time, and was tried on the West London Railway, on the South Devon system, and in other parts of Great Britain, also in France, but nowhere was it permanently successful. ”

“ During the past 25 years the total products of the South, from agriculture, forest, mines and manufactures, have increased in valuation over 225 per cent. During the last five years of this period, ending in 1906, the increase has been 50 per cent.
The common fallacy that a railroad is completed when opened for traffic has long since passed away, at least in the minds of intelligent men.
The railroad of today is no sooner completed as a single track, than it becomes necessary to provide industrial spurs; additional or enlarged terminals ”

“ Considering how very thinly peopled the country is, so that there is practically no local passenger and very little local goods traffic, the railway service is much better than could have been expected, and does great credit to the enterprise of the people. ”

“ Many of the lines in Ireland serving districts where population is scanty, traffic meagre, and trains consequently infrequent, could well have been spared the costly outlay which the Act involved. Three or four trains each way per day represent the train service on many of these small railways, and some of the sections of the larger lines warrant little more. Take, for instance, the case of the Midland Great-Western. On 330 out of its 538 miles not more than six trains each way in the 24 hours are required, and they could probably be reduced without hurting anyone. ”

“ In order to observe railway engineering in its most spectacular form in the Antipodes one must cross the Tasman Sea into New Zealand. The England of the South is provided with a backbone of lofty and extremely broken ridges. Indeed, the advance of the railway-builder through this country has been beset with abnormal obstacles which recall the conquests of the Rocky and Cascade mountains in North America. The most outstanding feature on the whole network of railways operated by the Government is the amazing number of bridges, the cost of which must represent a huge sum. ”

“ The Queensland railways, with more than half the mileage, earn less than one-eighth the total earned by South African railways, while the enormous traffic of the famous London North-Western, with its large capitalised value, only brings in a matter of £3,000,000 a year more than the railways of South Africa, with their moderate capitalisation of £50,000,000. ”

“ He was next shown over the Bank of England, his remarks on which are devoid of interest, and he visited the Paddington terminus of the Great Western Railway, in the hope of gaining a more accurate idea of the nature of the locomotive machinery, the astonishing powers of which he had witnessed in his journey to Southampton. ”

“ Passengers were transferred by coaches or omnibuses, and baggage and freight by wagons, between Wodonga and Albury, a distance of two miles. At last, however, the quarrels came to an end. A bridge was built, the lines of railway were completed, and since then everything has been harmonious. Passengers from New South Wales cross the river in the train by which they have arrived, and alight in the station at Wodonga. Passengers from Victoria cross the river, and make their 276change of cars on the territory of New South Wales in the Albury station. ”

“ The engineers who designed the line must have been skilful men, and by the track, as the train curves in and out of narrowing valleys and broadening plains, we are led to suppose that the Continent slopes gently from the interior down to Table Bay. The railway is a surface line, without a single tunnel or any serious cutting. The gradients in some places are stiff, but a single engine finds no difficulty in surmounting them.
At 4 p.m. of November 1 we reached the 458th mile from Cape Town, so that our rate of travel had been nineteen miles the hour. ”

“ The accommodation of Herefordshire, Worcestershire, South Wales, and the important districts lying to the west of the present lines of Railway, will evidently, at no distant period, require not only a wide-gauge Railway along the Southern coast, to place them in communication with London, but also a narrow-gauge Railway to place them in direct and unbroken communication, through Birmingham, with the manufacturing districts and the great Railway system of the rest of the kingdom. ”

“ Almost as the northeastern corner of England is the undisputed principality of a single system so does a single railway, the Great Western, stretch alone directly west from London and almost completely dominates its territory. To bring it into regional grouping with any of the other important British railway systems has been well-nigh impossible. After a number of futile attempts the professional and amateur railroaders who have been attempting the solution of the regional plan for Great Britain have given up the idea. ”

“ To meet the requirements which the circumstances demand, a far-stretching network of railways—with wide meshes it is true—is growing over the country. Instead of the old system of ox transport and coaches drawn by mules, which ten years ago were the only means of approach to the Transvaal and Rhodesia, there are now modern freight trains, drawn by heavy-type locomotives, hauling up the vast import traffic to the Rand, and running down return loads of wool and hides from the grassy uplands of the Orange River Colony, and the barren-looking, but wide and productive, karroo plains of the Cape. ”